Kreidler – Bike EXIFhttp://www.bikeexif.com
Bike EXIF is a showcase for the world's most exciting custom motorcycles, from cafe racers to bobbers to scramblers.Fri, 16 Feb 2018 23:56:03 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.4Corrupting our Youth: The Return of Kreidlerhttp://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler-125-cafe-racer
http://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler-125-cafe-racer#respondThu, 06 Jul 2017 17:01:35 +0000http://www.bikeexif.com/?p=27603
If you grew up in postwar Germany and developed a taste for small and very noisy racebikes, you’ll know the Kreidler name. The small manufacturer from just outside Stuttgart was a major force in racing in the 60s and 70s, but went out of business in the early 80s.

Things are now looking up again for Kreidler. A bicycle manufacturer acquired the rights to the name a few years ago, but there’s now a motorcycle division too—with a range centered on some very funky-looking 125s aimed at the huge European youth market.

Kreidler has now called in mountain biker and extreme sports TV presenter Niels-Peter Jensen to provide input into its designs. ‘NPJ’ has always been a keen motorcyclist (as we discovered when we had a chat at Wheels & Waves in France a couple of years ago).

Jensen’s mission is to ‘make Kreidler cool again’ and bring back the quality. “I’m trying to get the younger generation onto bikes,” he says, “and so far it’s working great.”

The first shot in the war is a limited edition called the Dice CR-125i NPJ Edition (above), priced at a very favourable €3,300 (US$3,750). That’s well under the sticker of even a Yamaha TW200, and Kreidler sold its entire stock of 99 NPJ Editions in just two days.

The specs are simple, but a bullseye on the Euro youth market: a 125cc four stroke with a USD fork, and disc brakes front and rear. Power is 11 horses from the aircooled Euro 4 compliant single, but the NPJ Edition weighs only 112 kilos—a mere 246 pounds.

Jensen has now built a custom version for his own use, shown here, with stylish paint by Danny Schramm of Schrammwerk. There’s also a shorter rear subframe, Fox Street Performance RC1 shocks, a revised swingarm to fit said shocks, and a Mikuni 28 carb to extract the maximum out of the engine—which is now good for 135 kph (83 mph).

He’s bumped the front wheel up from 17” to 19” and the rubber is Avon’s classic Speedmaster. There are custom foot pegs hand made from stainless steel and brass, and the custom seat is covered in the same leather that Audi uses for its R8 supercar.

It wouldn’t break the bank to copy these mods if you’re a teenager with a CR-125i in the garage, and they don’t compromise the practicality of the bike—over the past year, Jensen has ridden his Kreidler from Hamburg to Biarritz, and Hamburg to Oslo.

Right now, he’s finishing off a flat tracker to race at Dirtquake in England this weekend. The ultimate goal is to make a street-legal version of that flat tracker, “manufactured in Europe and sold for a good price,” says Jensen, “so we can get more young people onto cool bikes.”

It’s exactly what the motorcycling world needs: stylish and well-made bikes that younger riders can afford. We’ll be watching these developments with interest…

]]>http://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler-125-cafe-racer/feed0The Kreidstler Project: Danny Schramm’s wild Kreidler mopedhttp://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler-motorcycle
http://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler-motorcycle#respondWed, 23 Sep 2015 17:01:00 +0000http://www.bikeexif.com/?p=20938
In 1970s Europe, every teenager had a favorite set of wheels. In England, it was ‘sixteener specials,’ highly tuned mopeds like the Yamaha FS1-E. In France, Mobylettes were everywhere. And in Germany, three makers dominated: Zündapp, Hercules and Kreidler.

For young Danny Schramm and friends, the weapon of choice was a two-stroke Kreidler Florett. “You wore a denim vest, fitted large mirrors, and reamed out the exhaust,” he recalls. “With some ‘tuning’ you could be faster than the villain from the neighboring village, if he was causing trouble with your Dorfschönheiten [village beauties].”

Those days are long past. Danny is now a highly respected custom builder on the German scene, and has his own company, SchrammWerk GmbH. But at a custom show in Abu Dhabi, chatting to some fellow builders during the after party, he found himself reminiscing about the past. He decided to resurrect his old 50cc freedom machine.

The Kreidstler Project was born. It soon captured the attention of Danny’s friends and German industry heavyweights, who weighed in with advice and parts.

Danny started chopping, and the next three months felt like “Christmas every day” as the parts arrived. Uwe Ehinger sourced a 1932 BSA girder fork, and TTS Motorcycles sent through a set of 23-inch ‘Big Spoke’ rims.

Not surprisingly, these did not fit the forks or swingarm, so the modifications continued.

Danny believes in having the ‘go’ to match the show, so he hooked up with Sven Naber of NHPower for an engine overhaul and a new carburetor. One thing led to another and Naber soon got a request for an uprated clutch to handle the resulting tsunami of torque.

The sinuous exhaust system—with six tiny outlets—was built by Mario at Chopper Kulture, who also supplied a tiny headlight with a beautiful teak wood veneer. The bars and pegs came from a Kuwait specialist, with other parts arriving from equally far-flung shores—including New Zealand.

All that was left was to install a new tank, and tie the electrics together. Ingo Kruse is a legend in Germany for his show bike paintwork, and handled the spraying duties. Then Müller Motorcycle stepped in with a custom ECU to keep the new wiring loom humming.

At the recent Hamburg Harley Days, the Kreidstler scored an incredible coup: it won the ‘Best In Show’ award. Yes, despite being surrounded by big-bore, big budget Milwaukee customs, the little moped stole the day.

]]>http://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler-motorcycle/feed0Just The Essentials: the Kreidler RMChttp://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler
http://www.bikeexif.com/kreidler#respondMon, 17 Dec 2012 17:30:00 +0000http://www.bikeexif.com/?p=14792
There’s a beauty in the stripped-down aesthetics of a pure racing motorcycle. Especially one hewn from metal, and unadorned with dayglo sponsor logos. This circa-1980 Kreidler RMC belongs to Dutchman Edwin Sweers, who bought it when he turned 16 years old in 1985. It now puts out an extraordinary 19 hp at 13,500 rpm: the equivalent of a liter-bike putting out almost 400 hp.

Sweers used his German-made Kreidler on the road for a couple of years before preparing it for the Dutch 50cc road racing class. By 2010, the bike was scoring class wins.

“Two stroke tuning turned out to be an endless occupation for me,” he says. “But the chassis was never able to match the modern bikes in its class—it fails on stiffness.” On this highly tuned machine, now retired, the wheels and front suspension are from a Honda RS125 and the rear suspension is from Öhlins.

Kreidler did not change their crankcases or the steel-plate frame after 1972, and those are now the only unmolested parts still in use on the bike. The crankcases have been welded up and machined to take a 6-speed gearbox, and the water-cooled cylinder is from a modern Derbi. A programmable ignition system also controls the speed shifter. Sweers has built a custom exhaust system from five separate sections, which he can modify to test for maximum performance.

“The rpm limiter comes in at 15,000,” he reports. “I do the testing on a dyno bench that I built at the back of my house. The sound is mostly indoors, and I shield my neighbors from the blue smoke that comes out of the exhaust …”

The dents and scratches? “Leftovers from a hard life on the circuit,” says Sweers. And yes, there’s pipewrap too …